Monday, May 30, 2016

Balmoral Bakery : Hate it or love it

This is one of those old-school bakeries that are still existing, they have been in operation since 1965 when they started to sell English style cakes and pastries. It was founded by a group of Hainanese 'big brothers' as a complement to the famed Balmoral Steak House at Holland Village that was patronized by the British and Australian armed forces that was stationed in Singapore then.

I tried some of the pastries like Chicken Pie, Beef Pie, Curry Chicken Puff, Curry Beef Puff, Samosa and Sausage Rolls. Apparently, none of these pastries have tasted as good as it supposed to be. The puff pastry did not have much buttery taste and it was rather thick, in fact too much of it and with a rather minimum filling. I would actually suggest to try the Curry Chicken Puff ($1.80) from the Swisslink Bakery & Cafe nearby instead as those are surprisingly good and much better in standard in comparison.

I also got to try a few of their swiss rolls, buttercake, cream horns and coconut tart but none actually left an impression. The buttercream used was those old-fashioned type, which is rather oily and dense with not much flavor, it tasted of low quality.

It has stated on their website that 'We still make our items by hand, maintaining generation old tradition and ensuring quality and tastiness in our products. Our butter cakes, rum balls, cream horns, samosas, chicken pies and curry puffs still taste how they did so long ago.'

Still, i could not help but wonder what have actually gone wrong and there is such a drop in their standard? I felt that they do not longer serving 'delicious, crusty, golden pastries and moist, flavorful cakes' that were mentioned in 'Our Story' on their website. Perhaps due to certain reason that they are no longer doing that 'something right' as claimed on their website in their kitchen that they used to? Though they have been around for decades but sadly, the taste and standard have somewhat did not stay the same anymore.

Are there any of their fans out there? Perhaps you might want to share your thoughts on their standard now as compared to that of yesteryear. I did not get to try it first but this is definitely not something that i am expecting from a more than 50 years bakery.